It was co-founded in 1952, under the name Pro Musica Antiqua, by Noah Greenberg, a choral director, and Bernard Krainis, a recorder player who studied with Erich Katz.
[2] The ensemble is perhaps best known for reviving the medieval Play of Daniel in the 1950s, which has since become a popular liturgical drama among early music groups.
The group gave its first concert at the New School for Social Research in New York City on April 26, 1953.
Greenberg's successor, musicologist John Reeves White, took over the direction of the ensemble in 1966; the last director was George Houle, who tried to bring the group more in line with trends in Europe at a time when the United States was not ready for such changes.
[4] Although the group made many vocal and instrumental recordings during its existence, few of them were ever released on compact disc (the Plays of Daniel and Herod were combined into a two-disc set).